Own Goal Anomalies
According to the laws of the game, if a player puts the ball into their own goal directly from a restart of play (e.g. free kicks, corner kicks, goal kicks etc.) without the ball being touched by any other player, a corner kick is awarded to the other team and not an "own goal" which it would appear to be. Such incidents are extremely rare.
A mistake relating to that rule appeared to be committed by referee David Elleray during a Premier League derby match between Birmingham City and Aston Villa during the 2002/03 season. Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg threw the ball towards his goalkeeper (Peter Enckelman), who seemed to miss the ball completely and the ball went into the net. Elleray gave a goal to Birmingham even though it appeared that Enckelman may not have touched the ball - television replays were inconclusive. If Elleray had determined that Enckelman had not touched the ball, he should have awarded a corner kick to Birmingham.
Read more about this topic: Corner Kick
Famous quotes containing the word goal:
“It will help us and our children if we can laugh at our faults. It will help us tolerate our shortcomings, and it will help our children see that the goal is to be a human, not perfect.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)